


The Bay Quiets

by LadyBrooke



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, In-Universe Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23371441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: An extract from a paper written by a scholar in Gondor, concerning the Lossoth in the wake of Sauron's defeat.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	The Bay Quiets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tanaqui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/gifts).



"The Gaunt King left on the sea-monster's back, and the sea ate him."

Those were the words that the Wise Women among the Lossoth repeated in each village I visited during my attempt to discover the exact location where King Arvedui met his fate. There can be little doubt that Arvedui himself was the Gaunt King who left on the sea-monster's back. Early tales of the attempted rescue of Arvedui record the Lossoth as viewing the ship sent by Lord Cirdan as a sea-monster, for few ships are seen this far north, and of those few seen, fewer still manage to leave the bay in any state suitable for sailing. 

It has been a matter of less study that King Arvedui himself was viewed as the Gaunt King, even as the time neared for him to depart with the mariners. The Lossoth to this day view the treasures brought by Arvedui to the north as pointless at best. Jewels and palantirs, they remark, may be valuable in warmer lands, but in the lands of ice and snow, value is calculated from the nutrition and warmth one can gain from any particular object. 

Jewels, therefore, are of little use. The ring Arvedui left with their ruler is still in the possession of one of the families, though they did not permit me to see such, perhaps fearing I would attempt theft. Instead of being known as a king in possession of grand goods, Arvedui was known as a starving king whose decisions led to his own doom - the Gaunt King, the King their ancestors took pity on and tried their best to protect. 

If my own journey to reach the North had gone differently, doubtless I would have reacted to such judgment the way many of my readers no doubt do. While Arvedui's fate was sad, it was a quirk of fate or a doom of Sauron's in the eyes of most. The Lossoth are believed to have had no greater knowledge than Cirdan's sailors did, and if fate had been kinder and doom had not been placed upon both lines of kings, Arvedui would have returned to his Kingdom and ruled for some years. 

I hold that such beliefs about the events surrounding Arvedui's death are misguided. It is of little doubt to me now that Arvedui's fate was not solely due to a curse from Sauron, though he may have been driven to such desolate lands by one. Arvedui's fate was due to his own conviction that he knew better than the Lossoth themselves about their lands and the waters surrounding them, perhaps because he held two of the Seeing Stones as his own. 

The Gaunt King, one Wise Woman informed me when I had first arrived here, forgot that one cannot eat stone. The palantirs, they say, still reside beneath the waves and ice in the bay. It seems likely to me that they are right. Any scholar who has looked into the matter has concluded that the palantir were originally made by the Noldor, quite possibly before they even departed Valinor. Some speculation has concluded that they were even made by the hands of Fëanor himself, and if that is the case, it is quite unlikely that even the most icy and cold waters of the north will have managed to ruin stones whose brothers have survived fire and flame. 

But whatever knowledge Arvedui thought to be gained from the stones is lost, as are the stones themselves. 

Arvedui's ship can still be found crashed to pieces in the bay. 

The Lossoth say that Arvedui himself can also be found in the bay during storms. I had been in the village for a little over a week when the Wise Woman came to the tent door one morning, looking me over before nodding. 

"The Gaunt King will call for you tonight," she said. 

I will admit that I was confused at first, and then I judged it a matter of superstition and little truth. 

Perhaps I was right, for I did not see Arvedui that night or any future night. 

I did not see Arvedui, the way that in the Battles at the end of the War of the Ring those of us who fought saw all manner of legends walk in Gondor. 

But I did hear something that night, over the sound of the storm. Perhaps it was merely the sound of the storm hitting, tossing ice around in the bay. 

Such is entirely possible. While I have spent time in the lands of Gondor nearest to the seas, I am a scholar, not a sailor. I shall hardly insist that I know enough of the sea to completely eliminate the possibility that it was the sea itself making such noises. 

But while I am not a sailor, I know enough of my own ears to say that I did perceive the same sounds the Lossoth claim to hear on stormy nights. 

It begins the same way each night there is a storm.

There is the sound of wood scraping on ice in the bay. Sometimes one will hear shouts in the elven tongue. Sometimes one does not.

But in the end there is always a voice in the wind, shouting for Arvedui's son and wife. 

The Lossoth do not keep the same line of Kings that we do in Gondor, that was preserved in Imladris over centuries. 

But they know the names Arvedui would have known, and they say that the cries have decreased in recent years. 

One Wise Woman, old even by the standards of Wise Women, laughed when I asked how they knew of Sauron's defeat. 

"The Gaunt King went quiet. He still mourns, for he is lost, but he does not scream like he is captive. We know he will find his way home one day, and when he does, the bay will go quiet for good." 

The bay did not go quiet while I was there. Perhaps it will be centuries before it quiets for good, centuries in which Arvedui's ghost will remain on the water. 

But to the Lossoth, it has already begun to quiet. 

To the Lossoth, the Gaunt King has begun to make his way to his peaceful grave now that Sauron is defeated.


End file.
